This blog is all about my first book.

January 13, 2007

Commitment - Making Decisions

Click the play button to listen to this lesson.

There is an old saying that goes: "Ignorance is bliss." What it's supposed to mean is that if you don't know what's going on you'll be happier. And in some cases, that may be right. As an example, take the story of George Dantzig from Cynthia Kersey's book "Unstoppable."

George was a graduate student in mathematics at the University of California. One morning he overslept and came to his class twenty minutes late. He quickly wrote down the two math problems his professor had put on the board because he assumed that they were the homework assignment.

He spent several days working on the problems because they turned out to be very challenging. But he did finally solve them both and put them on his professors desk, amidst a bunch of other papers, after apologizing for taking so long to finish the assignment.

Six weeks later, at 8am on a Sunday morning, his professor came banging on his door. It seems that, because George had been late to class, he had missed the part of the lecture when his professor had explained that the two problems on the board were not the homework assignment, but that they were two famous unsolved problems in statistics. The professor was very excited because George had solved both of them.

What was the secret to George's success? He didn't know that the problems had never been solved. He was able to succeed where others had failed simply because he believed that he could.

A question that is often asked is: What would you dare to do if you knew that you couldn't fail? What do you think? What would you dare to do if your success was guaranteed?

One of the biggest tests we face when we step out in faith is the test of our commitment. We may find it easy to make the initial decision, but when we encounter problems and difficulties, weoften give up.

How is your staying power? Have you ever felt that you must have made a mistake because things didn't go as easily as you thought? Have you ever given up when the road to your dreams seemed to be too rocky, too steep, or just plain too long?

When we think about our dreams we have to answer the question: Can we make the commitment to reach our dream? We need to be willing to pursue our dream until we reach it and to start taking steps toward our dream today. Time is running out for all of us, we can't afford to waste it.

The first part of Proverbs 29:18 says, "Where there is no revelation (or vision), the people cast off restraint."

The Hebrew word that is translated as restraint means to show a lack of restraint, or to let loose. It's the opposite of commitment because commitment means that we are constrained or focused on what we want. With no vision and no commitment our lives have no direction and we won't accomplish much of anything.

But restraint and commitment apply to the vision and not to the means by which the vision will be accomplished. Not that the ends justify the means, but that we don't get so locked into one particular way of reaching our goal that we miss out on opportunities that God brings our way.

I'm reminded of the story about man sitting in the lobby of a hotel and watching a fly. The fly was desperately trying to get outside, but it kept banging into the window over and over again. It was determined, but misguided, because there was an open door a few feet away from the window. The problem was that the fly only knew about the window.

Last week I talked about creativity and using our imaginations, and that we often have to concentrate on something for a long time but that our reward will be insights and ideas that can help us reach our goals. When we commit to the dream or vision we want to accomplish and allow God to show us the best way to reach them, we'll experience success.

Faith is all about commitment. It's deciding what we want, deciding to trust God for it, and then deciding to keep taking steps toward our dreams until, with God's help, we reach them. Commitment is based on the belief that we can and will succeed. And as we face problems along the road to our dreams, like George Dantzig, when we believe that we can solve the problems, we will.